CP-E3 battery pack ... do missing tabs cause it to stop working?

[kiva]

<p>I have three CP-E3 battery packs ... after my wedding yesterday I've been recharging the batteries. </p>

<p>While recharging the batteries in the battery pack (along with the 4 AA batteries in the 580ex unit) I find that the 8 AA batteries from the battery pack are recharging <strong>Much faster</strong> than the 4 batteries from the speedlite which all were on the same "team" i.e. the 12 batteries are used together.</p>

<p>The same thing occurred with the second set of 12 also: the battery pack 8AA batteries all charge quickly but the 4 from the speedlite took a significant time longer.</p>

<p>I charge 12 batteries at one time on my Annsman Energy 16 which charges the 12 AA batteries at the same time.</p>

<p>Question: all my CP-E3 battery packs have cartridges that have mostly broken "tabs" (grrrr) so I'm wondering if any one has discovered that IF the tabs are broken then how do I know if my battery pack is actually working in tandem with my 580ex units.</p>

<p>How do I tell ... the battery pack "red light" does light up to show it's active but I find it curious that the 12 batteries from the battery pack all recharge quickly and the 4 from the speedlite take quite a bit longer. </p>

<p>Any information / experience is appreciated.</p>

[jcolwell]

<p>I use a CP-E3 with two CMP-E3 reload magazines. Both mags are missing a bunch of tabs, with no effect on operation that I can detect. I can't say that I've noticed a difference in discharge and subsequent recharge times between the CP-E3 and batts from the 580EX, but that could be because I just dump all discharged batts into a "to charge" container, and so I wouldn't know which came from where. You can set the C.Fn-07=1 to run the 580EX off the external power pack only - that'll let you know pretty fast if it's working or not.</p>